The present invention relates to conveyor systems and more particularly to conveyor systems for conveying planar panels.
Planar panels are used in the packaging industry as reinforcing members in a package and as insets or separators between adjacent items contained in a package.
It is a problem in a high speed manufacturing environment to transport panels to be used in packages in an orderly, controlled manner at a high rate of speed from bulk storage to a workstation in preparation to the installation of the panels in a package without interruption in the flow of panels. It is a further problem to temporarily stop the conveying of such panels when the downstream package installation operation is interrupted without causing a stack-up of panels on the conveyor, and then restart the conveying of such panels upon resumption of the package installation operation without starvation of the flow of panels after the restart.
An example of one such conveyor system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,777,630 issued on Dec. 11, 1973 which teaches an endless belt conveyor with a panel hopper at the upstream end and another endless belt at the downstream discharge end of the belt conveyor moving at a right angle to the belt conveyor to engage the panels leaving the belt conveyor and turn them downwardly to fall by gravity into a vertical guide. The panels are pushed from the hopper by a moveable blade which pushes the panels onto the conveyor belt. A feed roller at the upstream end of the belt conveyor forms a nip between the feed roller and the tail pulley of the conveyor belt. The panels from the hopper pass through the nip and are further pushed onto the conveyor belt by the feed roller.